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Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
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A Partial Truth
- Trevor LP Watts (21 December 2007)
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Was medical research funding spent on this?
- Neil Courtis (21 December 2007)
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Re: Was medical research funding spent on this?
- Julian C Knight, Marian Knight (22 December 2007)
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Re: Was medical research funding spent on this?
- John Brown (22 December 2007)
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Thanks for this Christmas treat!
- Kim Burlingham, 75494 (23 December 2007)
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Further Research - Jedi
- Steven A Bland (28 December 2007)
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much a do about nothing?
- werner kaiser (1 January 2008)
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What was the point of this article?
- Toby Andrew (18 January 2008)
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Brilliant!
- Elizabeth Engenheiro (19 January 2008)
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A man who wanted to believe in miracles.
- Kazem Zarrabi (15 February 2008)
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Trevor LP Watts, Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Periodontology KCL Dental Institute at Guy's Hospital, SE1 9RT
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This is an extremely interesting article, suggesting that people tend to seek partners with abilities like themselves. However, the Watts Theory of Partnership has long since moved on from this to the Refined Watts Theory of Partnership, which states that people tend to marry someone who looks like they do. The reason and logic in this is clear: people cannot imagine that anyone would be better-looking than they are themselves. Competing interests: I married someone who looks like myself and who loves me as much as I love her; we think our children all married persons looking like themselves too, and they seem to love each other a lot as well. |
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Neil Courtis, IT Consultant various
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Was medical research funding actually spent on this? If so, how is that justifiable? Competing interests: None declared |
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Julian C Knight, Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science University of Oxford, OX3 7BN, Marian Knight
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No medical research funding was used on this work. The paper was written in the authors' own time. We carried out this research predominantly on long car journeys around the motorway networks of the UK with our three children. The paper is written, in the spirit of the Christmas BMJ, to illustrate genetic concepts to the generalist reader using a light-hearted example. JK Rowling has been widely accredited with encouraging children to read again in this electronic age, and we hoped that we might follow her example by bringing some of the excitement of contemporary genetics to a wider audience. For details of our funded programmes of research please see www.well.ox.ac.uk, www.ndm.ox.ac.uk and www.npeu.ox.ac.uk. Competing interests: None declared |
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John Brown, Scientist London
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Of course it wasn't- it is clearly a (lighthearted) literature review. Competing interests: None declared |
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Kim Burlingham, MD, rural pediatrics solo practice, Winnsboro, TX, USA, 75494
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My fifteen year old had been mentioning that she was interested in genetics and your wonderful article has really peeked her interest. I love the idea of her being drawn to this field of medicine much more than her competing interest: video game producer! Perhaps a bit of both would be magical! Thank you! Competing interests: None declared |
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Steven A Bland, Consultant in Emergency Medicine Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth PO6 3LY
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I thank the authors for perhaps the best and only genetics publication I have managed to read all the way through! I wondered if they would be extending their research into the inheritance of Jedi potential for 2008? However, I believe that the research material may be more difficult to interpret with multi-species variation and possible Sith gene manipulation, although there are at least two sets of twins. Subject to medical research funding of course! Brilliant article - thanks! Competing interests: None declared |
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werner kaiser, physician 2504 biel switzerland
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not to be absolutely certain is one of the essential things of reality
bertrand russel
or
alles kann relativiert werden,ausser die dummheit der menschen,die ist absolut.
albert einstein
wie es euch gefällt
Competing interests: dem gesunden menschenverstand verpflichtet |
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Toby Andrew, Statistical geneticist Statistical Genetics Group, Imperial College, London W2 1PG
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Dear Sir, Reading Ramagopalan et al's tongue-in-cheek review of the heritable and genetic basis for the origin of magic (BMJ 2007;335:1299-1301), it is difficult to decide whether the authors and editor were simply indulging in some inconsequential childish humour in the run up to Christmas 2007 or obliquely attempting to raise a more serious point about quantitative genetics. Are the authors criticising the well-documented problem in field of human genetics of the lack of power to detect genes of small effect using observational data? Or, more mischievously, are they implying that all human complex trait genetic research is doomed to failure? If the former point is being made, most serious geneticists would probably agree that more intelligent study designs are required to address the lack of power, rather than just ever larger and more expensive cohorts. If the latter point, a principled resolution to their breath- taking cynical stance might simply be to fall upon their wands! yours faithfully, Toby Andrew PhD
Competing interests: None declared |
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Elizabeth Engenheiro, PhD student WJC, University of Copenhagen
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Thank you for taking me away from the heavy literature on transcriptional control, enhancers, chromatin remodelling and regulatory landscapes and providing a well-deserved laugh. I will definetely cite you in my thesis and mention FOXP2 as a possible gene for parseltongue!! I wonder if my thesis reviewers will find it as entertaining as I did or not even notice it. You have certainly made my day!! A creative and fun way of transmitting information and of shaking the "serious" world of genetics! Best regards, Elizabeth Competing interests: None declared |
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Kazem Zarrabi, Researcher BMCSRC, Titangade 3B, 2 t.h., 2200 N., Copenhagen, Denmark
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The article on "origins of Magic" is an excellent one. And as the authors confirm, it should be followed by further investigations. However, we may all see magic differently. Therefore, I hope the short exchange that I have written between a "man" and a "priest" can clarify some aspects of magic as it "appears" to us. "A man who wanted to believe in miracles" Someone went to a priest and said: Man: Father, can you tell me what a miracle is? You see, I want to believe in miracles. Priest: My son, from the time that you wake up until your rest at night there are miracles after miracles. They are all around you. Don't you see them? Man: You say there are miracles all around me, like what father? Priest: Like sunrise my son, like sunset, like billions of stars at the night sky, like childbirth, and of course like death. Don't you think these are all miracles? Don't you see the miraculous order of the steps in all these events? Man: (very puzzled) Forgive me father, I always thought that all these that you mentioned were supposed to be there. I never thought of them as miracles. I still don't get one point right father? Priest: What is that son? Man: What is exactly miraculous about these things after all? You know what I mean father, don't you? Priest: I think I do! A miracle, for most people, is something that should puzzle them right? Man: (excited) Yes father, exactly! For example, when I see the sun, the moon or the stars I am not puzzled because they keep repeating themselves. Therefore, I expect that they follow their cycles or steps as you call them father. Priest: Okay! Doesn't the sun puzzle you? I mean do you know all the exact details of its formation or radiation? And are you 100 per cent sure that what you know is true? Man: Well, I don't know that for sure. But the scientists should know it, right father? Priest: Let me ask you another question before any answer. Man: Go ahead father. Priest: What about childbirth? Do you know all the exact details of embryology and development? Just think about it. Your cell and a woman's cell get together and they become one single fertilized cell. And that single cell becomes millions and billions of specialized cells that make life possible for another being. Do you know all the details about these my son? Man: Well, again, I know very little father. But, surely the scientists should know all about these things, don't they? Priest: Not exactly! No scientist can claim that he or she knows all the exact details of anything. That very moment that he or she does make such a claim, he or she stops to be a scientist. You see my son, science is about good and clever guessworks and the best possible guessworks. Nothing more and nothing less. This physical world that we live in is a word of "extended" or "continuous" miracles that we get used to it, and therefore we take it for granted. We assume that a miracle is something that just happens suddenly and unexpectedly out of the blue. Something that we haven't seen before, something that doesn't repeat itself. Man: (a little puzzled) I think I got my answer father. You say we live in a world that is nothing but a world of continuous or extended miracles. And we can't realize this because we get used to it or that we are conditioned to assume likewise, right? Priest: Yes, exactly! This is in the same way that we get used to our parents, family, priest, town, country, and the planet. We assume that all these things where always there, and they will always be there for us. Sadly, we only wake up to see that we were wrong, and they have all gone into the blue. Man: What's all these about father? I mean what is the purpose? Is there any purpose after all? Priest: I don't know my son. I am just like you, a human, a sinner, an imperfect organism that just like you does belong to a species called Homo sapiens that soon or late will be replaced by a fitter one. Man: (very puzzled) Father! Do you believe in evolution? Priest: I believe that Darwinian evolution or creation are different names for God's will. You see, I believe that the old controversy between creationists and evolutionists is actually a misplaced one. It is nothing but a fuss. And a big old fuss, which is actually about nothing. In fact Darwinian evolution, the Big Bang and the expanding universe, gravity, quantum effect, electromagnetic field, and all that science aims to discover and rediscover are "laws of nature" by which God ordains everything. This is what I think is the case. Does this make any sense to you? Man: What about if Bible contradicts what you say? Priest: If so, then we do not read the Bible "correctly"! If we do read and understand Bible correctly, then we won't see any contradiction with science. Even though science will be always incomplete, it does not lie! Science should not contradict our understanding of the Bible, it should confirm it or at least it should be neutral to it. And I believe this is the case. Man: I am an ordinary man father. I am not so good in such debates. Earlier, I asked you about the purpose. Priest: Yes of course! You see, I am neither an angel nor a messenger. So I cannot claim that I have the right answer. So what I am telling you is what I think. I think this world is a "test" with "puzzles" that we should try to solve individually, as each unique person that we are, and collectively as mankind. We have to solve the puzzle and pass the test. In fact, not only we have to find out the missing link, which will unite all God's creation together in an evolutionary sense of time. But, also the missing piece of love and trust that has alienated us from God since Adam and Eve. We have to regain God's love and trust. This is the puzzle, which is too simple to be recognized. The devil has chained our hearts to material life, to greed and selfishness, and this is why we worship power and money. It is for any man or woman to unchain his or her heart and extend his or her love to others and to God! And this is how we should solve the puzzle and pass the test. You see my son, even the solution for the puzzle is too simple. We simply have to unchain our hearts. But, what is not simple is the action itself. This is because to unchain your heart you have to give up the power of evil and all that is attached to it. Man: But father, how can we do this when everything is all about money? Priest: Do what son? Man: I mean how can we unchain our hearts when we all need is money and lots of money? Priest: Have faith in the origin of good, love, and magic! Love of God will unchain your heart. Then you can see and read what you have not been able to do before. From birth to death we are lost in a colourful, shiny, and foggy room with two big entrance and exit doors. We are lost as soon as we enter into the room because the fog of our ignorance and greed is so thick. It is so thick that we can't see the doors at all! We say all sorts of things, and behave so arrogantly. We are disgraceful to our kind, to nature, and foremost to God. We don't appreciate what we have. And we envy others for what they have. We plan to live for the next two hundred years to come. Suddenly, we find ourselves at the exit door! Then, we call on God, and we beg for more time. For a few more days, hours, minutes, or seconds so that we can do good things and unchain out hearts. But, we sadly realize that nothing that we have saved in life can buy us more time. It is already too late and the exit door is shut behind us and we are locked out for ever. Does this make sense to you my son? Priest: (the man seems sleeping, and the priest tries to wake him up) My son, my son, please wake up, wake up please! (there is no response) Priest: (deeply sad with tears in his eyes.) Oh my God, he has gone! Good God, he came to me because he wanted to believe. He wanted to believe in miracles. And you gave him his last miracle. Written by: Dr. Kazem Adl Zarrabi, "Bio-medical and Cultural Study and Research Center (BMCSRC)" Competing interests: None declared |
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